GovExec: “The New York Times recently published a set of very depressing statistics. Among a group of large, high-income countries, the U.S. had the very lowest percentage of the population that is fully vaccinated against the COVID virus. The figures for the percentage who had received a booster were even more dramatic — we had less than half the percentages vaccinated in Britain and Germany. Most distressing of all, we also had the largest cumulative per capita death rate of any of these countries — well over double the death rate in Canada. People who are not vaccinated endanger not only themselves but other people whom they infect, meaning that this is not just a case of people lying in the bed they’ve made but of people whose behavior create dangers for others. To me the basic reason for these differences is clear. One of the features of American culture we admire most — our devotion to the freedom of individuals to decide what to do — creates problems when the social interest requires us to restrict our freedom of choice, by wearing masks or being required to be vaccinated…

I think the approach we need to take whenever possible involves a word invented by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in a widely discussed book a number of years ago. We need to nudge people to do the right things..”